April 28, 2015 | By Jaclyn Brandt

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) released their March 2015 Energy Infrastructure Update and renewable continues to grow. According to the report, more than 75 percent of all new large-scale electrical generation capacity came from wind, solar, geothermal, and hydropower in the first quarter of 2015.

Credit: Stausifr/Wikimedia Commons

New capacity added to the grid was 647 megawatts (MW) of wind; 214 MW of solar; 45 MW of geothermal; and 21 MW of hydropower. Those numbers put solar at a total of 12 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity in the United States -- or 1.03 percent of total installed utility-scale generating capacity.

"The U.S. solar market continues to show dramatic growth," Ken Johnson with the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) told FierceEnergy. "We currently have 20 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity nationwide, and we expect that number to double by the end of 2016. That's enough clean solar energy to power more than 8 million homes."

Although the one percent mark is a big number for solar, it is still behind other renewables. Hydro provides 8.53 percent of all installed generating capacity, while wind is at 5.65 percent and biomass is at 1.38 percent. Geothermal is now at 0.33 percent. On top of that, there were four new natural gas facilities brought online in the first quarter, and 17 more proposed. In all, renewables account for nearly 17 percent of all installed generating capacity.

However, the FERC report only takes into account utility-scale generation, which makes a big difference in the number.

"In reality, we crossed the one percent threshhold quite a while ago," Johnson told FierceEnergy. "FERC, unfortunately, does not include rooftop solar in its calculations, so their numbers tend to lag behind what's really happening in the marketplace. By our estimates, solar was at 1.4 percent of total capacity at the end of 2014."

For more:
- read the report

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http://www.fierceenergy.com/story/utility-scale-solar-capacity-now-over-one-percent/2015-04-28